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Barely 20 Years Old, but Coming of Age Fast

Phil Hughes had no big plans to celebrate the end of his teenage years Friday. He had finished a workday at Waterfront Park in Trenton, and the next day he would be 20 years old. Twenty years old and still a Yankee.

"It was hot tonight," Hughes said outside the clubhouse of the Class AA Trenton Thunder, after pitching eight one-hit innings to beat a team from Norwich, Conn. "I'm pretty gassed. I just want to get in bed."

Then Hughes, the youngest player in the Eastern League and the best prospect in the Yankees' farm system, thought of something else. "I'll probably talk to my mom for a while," he said.

Hughes's parents live in Santa Ana, Calif. He so adores California that he has a tattoo of a swallow on his back as a tribute to his old hometown, San Juan Capistrano, where swallows leave in the fall and return every spring.

Hughes will not be returning soon, at least not permanently. He recently purchased a condominium in Tampa, Fla., the city where Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and George Steinbrenner live. It is where Yankees go for the winter.

A month from now, in theory, Hughes may have a different employer. If the Yankees are lagging in the pennant race and Steinbrenner, the principal owner, decides he must have Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Lee or a front-line pitcher, he could order Hughes to be traded.

But there are no indications that will happen. There are ordinary prospects, and there is Phil Hughes.

"There has not been one guy that's come through here that's been like this," said the Trenton left-hander Danny Borrell, a seven-year veteran of the Yankees' farm system. "He is in a league by himself when it comes to fanfare and all that."

Borrell, 27, sits with Hughes in the stands if they are charting pitches during games. Fans line up all night for Hughes's autograph, he said, which is one reason Borrell calls him Messiah.

Hughes's pitching is the main reason. Twice in his last four starts, he has allowed only one hit. His earned run average in that stretch is 0.96, and he has 33 strikeouts in 28 innings. Since the Yankees drafted him out of high school in the first round in 2004, the right-handed Hughes is 15-7 with a 2.40 earned run average and more strikeouts than innings.

"There's no reason this guy shouldn't be a top-of-the-rotation-type starter," said a scout who watched Hughes last Friday. The scout was granted anonymity because he was talking about another team's player.

"He's got stuff, size, command. There's a lot to like. For a young guy who pitches off his fastball to still use his changeup and breaking ball, he did a good job of pitching. He wasn't just out there winging it."

One general manager, who was granted anonymity so he would not violate tampering rules, shared the feeling that Hughes would be a top starter. "I would have to say that he is the one Yankee prospect that is untouchable," he said.

Hughes toyed with the hitters Friday. He had a perfect game through four innings and a no-hitter through seven, mixing curveballs and changeups with fastballs at the knees from 89 to 95 miles an hour.

He struck out the first two hitters and thought he had struck out the third, turning his back on the plate umpire after a call he disputed. As he walked off the field after a groundout, Hughes said to the umpire, "You feel like you missed one right there?" The umpire said no, and Hughes said O.K. That was the end of it.

"He's a competitor, but it just seems like he never gets flustered," said Billy Masse, the Trenton manager. "He gets frustrated every once in a while, but he gathers himself real quick for a kid that young."

Dave Eiland, the Trenton pitching coach, called Hughes mature beyond his years, in his composure and in his feel for pitching.

"He gets upset with himself if he throws a pitch and he doesn't get it exactly where he wants to, but he still gets away with it," Eiland said. "That's not good enough for him. When I talk with him on the mound or in the dugout between innings, you can see the intensity in his eyes."

Photo

The Trenton Thunder's Phil Hughes gave up one hit over eight innings in a victory on Friday, his last as a teenager.Credit
Tom Mihalek for The New York Times

Before Friday's game, Masse spoke at length about players' creating their own timetables for advancing to the majors. When a player dominates a league, Masse said, it is time to move him.

After the near no-hitter, Masse talked more about Hughes's needing to develop his off-speed pitches to improve. It sounded ridiculous, after the way Hughes had just overwhelmed hitters, and Masse finally relented. Get better?

"I don't know how," he said, laughing. "Is he going to give up negative hits? But when he does eventually get his breaking ball and changeup where he needs them to be, he'll be dominating. If he has a couple more starts like that, it's going to be pretty hard to hold him down."

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None of this is surprising to the Yankees' players. Hughes was so impressive in spring training that veterans gushed about him without being asked. Catcher Jorge Posada compared him to Rivera at the same age.

"I think the guy's going to be an All-Star," Posada said last week, his memory still fresh four months later. "Hopefully we can keep him here. He'll be here soon."

This is how Hughes is regarded by players old enough to have been on his baseball cards as a kid. Hughes rooted for the Boston Red Sox, of all teams, because his father is from New England. But that loyalty is long gone.

Hughes has never been on the field or in the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium. He sat in the stands June 5, his first time in New York, when his agent took him to a game on a day off.

Hughes was amazed at the bustle of the stadium, the throngs at the gates, the curtain call for Jason Giambi in the second inning. It was incredible, he said, and he began to picture his future when the scoreboard flashed statistics of minor leaguers.

Asked about trade rumors, Hughes offered the typical response, saying he does not pay attention. But he keenly understands his importance to the Yankees.

"I'm aware of it, and it only makes me better, because it pushes me to be what people expect me to be," Hughes said. "If I fail, which happened to me a lot at the beginning of my time in Double-A, it hurts extra because I know a lot of people are counting on me."

Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman has emphasized the farm system since he re-signed last October and wrested more authority from Steinbrenner. In spring training, Cashman said, he spent more time at the minor league complex than ever before. He also participated in the draft for the first time and planned to visit each affiliate.

Asked last week about Hughes, Cashman tried to steer the conversation to other prospects. But the consensus is that Hughes and Jose Tabata, a 17-year-old outfielder at Class A Charleston, are off-limits.

Cashman has already rejected an offer of Kansas City's Reggie Sanders for Hughes, despite the Yankees' need for an outfielder. In past years, the Yankees might have been more tempted to think of the present.

"I wouldn't label anybody untouchable, but he's harder to touch than most," Cashman said. "He's no different than anybody else in our system, trying to perform their way up the ladder."

Hughes took a misstep last season, with two stints on the disabled list because of shoulder inflammation. He had only 91 1/3 career innings coming into this season, but has exceeded that total this year.

Mark Newman, the Yankees' senior vice president who oversees the farm system, said Hughes would not pitch beyond a predetermined number of innings. As for a promotion, Newman said he expected Hughes to stay with Trenton all season.

The Yankees want Hughes to refine his off-speed pitches, learn to handle adversity and grow into his upper body. He is 6 feet 2 inches and 230 pounds but will probably fill out to 250.

"The next steps he makes are harder than the ones he's already made," Newman said. "Does he have a chance to make them gracefully and successfully? More than any pitcher we've had since Andy Pettitte. But I'm not going to say it's a done deal."

Maybe not. But Hughes is getting there, steadily and often spectacularly.